


The Price Of Paradise

by Telas_Selar



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Amputee main character, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt S'vec Sylar, Implied/Referenced Mental Conditioning, Implied/Referenced Non-consensual Oral Sex, Implied/Referenced Past Torture, Implied/Referenced Physical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Improper Use of 21st Century Medical Tools, M/M, Mouth Sewn Shut, POW S'vec Sylar, Pre-Picard AU, S'vec Sylar has PTSD, Sylar is not okay, Syrios, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, implied/Referenced non-consensual bondage, implied/referenced eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27955394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telas_Selar/pseuds/Telas_Selar
Summary: After the events of Sylar's assault at Starfleet HQ leave him defiant of how a former Romulan POW should behave, he takes matters into his own hands.
Relationships: Cristóbal Rios/S'vec Sylar, Implied Emil (EMH) & S'vec Sylar, Implied Narissa Rizzo/S'vec Sylar
Kudos: 2





	The Price Of Paradise

_Just where did the cycle end?_

S'vec Sylar swallowed painfully, allowing the back of his head to fall back against the tiled wall of the bathroom in his quarters as his eyelids fluttered shut. Every breath he took was still painful, but he could not prevent himself from rushing over to the sink to empty the contents of his stomach every few minutes. 

Not that there was much to rid himself off - Sylar never ate, his nutrition came from the EMH's recently-imposed intravenous injections, and everything Narissa had forced down his throat had likely left it after the first four times the Vulcan had induced vomiting. It was purely psychological - he was aware that there was nothing left, that every time he slid his shaking fingers into his throat and forced himself to throw up, he was only damaging the tender muscles which Emil had repaired less than an hour ago, but that changed nothing. It did not take away the urge, the urge he was forbidden to have, nor the sense of being _unclean_ , visibly and invisibly tainted by the acts he had been bound and made to perform. If anything, it made his need to hurt himself escalate.

He was not permitted to think of what the colonel had done to him as _assault_ . He had not wanted it, of course, (in fact, he had _begged_ for her to reconsider until she had cut his vocal cords to silence him), but never once, in the history of the Romulan Star Empire, had the voice of a prisoner mattered.

Sylar was branded, a marked man like thousands before him, allowed to leave Romulus only as a broken spy of the Tal Shiar, but that did not give him any more rights than those who had been gutted alive in the bowels of that city. He had no voice, no vote, no equal status. He could not claim to have those things, nor could he ever defy what was thrust upon him, regardless of how painful or demeaning it was. 

Which made his current thoughts…unacceptable. 

Hauling himself back to his feet, Sylar pressed his lips together as hard as he could, resisting his reoccurring urge in favour of unlocking his medkit and extracting a small box of primitive 21st century medical instruments. Crude, sharp, and merciless, they would serve the required purpose in a satisfactory manner. 

He would put a stop to this disgusting defiance his body was insisting upon, before his disobedience grew any more serious than it already was. 

Sylar tightened the pressure keeping his lips together as he simultaneously threaded a hard, dark wire through a needle the size of his smallest finger. As the Vulcan forced the sharp end of the needle into the far right side of his closed lips, there was no pain to be felt, but blood trickled rapidly from the punctured flesh, staining the white fabric of his borrowed shirt a deep, forest green.

Exhaling slowly with every stitch, Sylar worked as methodically and precisely as he could, ignoring the inevitable tremor in his fingertips. 

_In. Out. In._ _Out._ Sylar was no stranger to stitching wounds shut, but this was not a wound. He pushed the needle further in and pulled it out harder to ensure tighter stitches. This was not a wound that required healing. This was a disobedient part of his body which required punishment. _In. Out._

Heat and numbness flickered to life as the Vulcan's task neared its end, but he ignored them both, reaching instead for a different tool to finish the job - a small penknife. 

With this, he sliced the end off the wire and used his dermal regenerator to merge the end of it into his skin. Tying a knot was less likely to make the stitches last for as long as they would be required to. 

_Which was how long, exactly?_ One part of his mind wondered, the part which anticipated the reactions of his captain and the holograms, but he paid it no heed, turning back to the sink. Now he had completed what he had set out to do, Sylar's fingertips did not shake, allowing him to dip a washcloth into warm water and gently press it to his sewn lips without incident. The bleeding would stop once sufficient pressure had been applied, and his stitches would appear clean and professional as soon as the blood had been cleared away. 

Deftly, he worked to accomplish this, feeling for fresh beads of blood over every stitch until there were none, before sliding the panel in the cabinet to the side to reveal the one mirror he had in his possession (Sylar normally had no use for mirrors, as he believed them to be tied to vanity whilst simultaneously fearing what he would see in them, but this was an occasion which required one.) 

Placing the thumb of his mangled hand firmly under his chin, he forced himself to lock eyes with his reflection, and blinked. 

Staring back at him was the tired but attractive face of the man he refused to look at on a daily basis. Strawberry-blonde hair fell neatly over Sylar's forehead in the precise manner dictated by Vulcan standards, and slanted brows framed his handsome oval face, but Sylar's goal was never vanity, and so he did not acknowledge the features which gave him the beauty his captain would always praise, instead focusing on his altered lips.

Bound by the dark wire so perfectly that they were almost consistent with the perfection he maintained (or worked to maintain) in every part of his existence, Sylar momentarily fixated on their appearance, but he did not forget what had led to it. 

This was perfection, the Vulcan decided, turning his head sideways to properly observe his handiwork. This was how it should always be.

Sylar decided that he was beautiful when he was obedient. 


End file.
